Chapter Forty-Two
There was nothing worse than the wait before action. Marcus thought he might jitter out of his skin if they didn’t make a move soon, but he could do nothing while crammed into an SUV with Lanie, Harvard, Ian, and Carreras. Jesse, Seth, and Devlin followed in a second car with the team’s equipment while their pilot, Jace Garcia, waited on standby in case they needed a quick helo exfil.
God. Last time they’d gone to battle like this, Danny had died. He looked around at his teammates and wondered who was next.
His leg bounced nervously. He gripped his knee with one hand, forced it to stop moving. He had to focus or the next dead guy would be him. He turned slightly in his seat to face Lanie, who was giving one final mission briefing as they sped up a twisting mountain road toward the castle. Marcus imagined Jesse doing the same for Seth and Devlin in the other vehicle.
“The castle has only one point of entry and that’s the bridge. We’ll wade across the moat here, underneath the bridge, where there is less chance we’ll be seen from above.” Using an iPad, Lanie indicated a spot on a digital 3-D rendering of the castle.
“Nice image,” Carreras said. He twisted around to the driver’s seat and punched Harvard in the arm. “You make that, genius boy?”
Harvard’s fingers tightened on the wheel until the leather creaked. “No, Sami did. I don’t have a background in graphic design.”
Carreras whistled. “Hang on to that girl, H. She’s something else on a computer. And you know what they say about girls who are good with hard drives…”
“Murderous” was the only word to describe the look Harvard spared him before returning his attention to the road.
And that ratcheted up the tension to a billion.
Good going, Carreras.
Marcus groaned. “Let’s get Jean-Luc back so we can get rid of this clown.”
“Aw, you’ll miss me.”
“Like an anal fissure,” Ian muttered. “I never thought I’d see the day I missed the Cajun. At least he’s funny. Sometimes. No, wait. He’s mostly a pain in the ass.”
“But he’s our pain in the ass.” Marcus jerked a thumb toward Carreras. “Unlike this dude.”
“So he’s a hemorrhoid,” Carreras said cheerfully. “Tell me, is that a step up or down from anal fissure?”
“Are y’all done?” Lanie asked the group. When everyone settled again under her glare, she continued. “We’re lucky Austria has had an exceptionally dry summer. According to Harvard’s intel, the moat is only chest high at its deepest point. Ian, Carreras, Seth, and Devlin will go across first. Seth and Devlin will provide cover while Ian sets a charge here and Carreras sets one here.”
Using two fingers, she enlarged the spot on the digital model where the lower part of the castle’s wall was stone and the upper part wood.
Lanie pointed to two corners where wood met stone. “This is the weakest point in the outer wall. The rest is all stone. Now Seth cautions that we should watch the arrow slits as we cross the moat. They’re all perfect sniper hide sites. As well as the turret.”
“What do we know about this Ostermann guy’s manpower?” Carreras asked, all business now. “Does he have enough guys to put snipers in all those spots?”
Lanie shook her head. “We don’t know, but he has enough money to buy a lot of loyalty.”
“So expect the worst. Got it. Wouldn’t be fun if it were easy, right?”
“The rest of us will cross while Ian and Carreras set their charges.” She turned to Harvard. “I want you to get a recon drone airborne as soon as we stop. That will at least give us some info about what kind of force we’re up against.”
Harvard pulled the SUV onto a side road and killed the engine. “So I’m staying behind with the SUVs?” He shoved open his door. “Great.”
Lanie winced when his door shut harder than was necessary.
“Hey,” Marcus said and touched her shoulder. “Whatever’s bugging him, he’ll get over it. And if he doesn’t, we’ll kick his ass when this is over.”
She drew a breath. “Yeah.”
Everyone climbed out and started unloading the gear. Once they were set, Lanie gathered them around. “Everyone clear on the mission and objective?”
Everyone gave affirmative responses.
“All right. No lights. Only night vision from here on.” She slid her own goggles over her eyes. “And guys? This should go without saying. We have no idea what we’re going to find on the other side of that castle wall, but we’re breaching a suspected bioweapons lab. Take every precaution you don’t infect yourselves with something nasty and bring it home to our families, got it?”
“Roger that,” Marcus said.
…
Harvard watched the team leave without him. Again. Why should he be surprised? They always left him somewhere away from the action, where he’d be safe.
Cursing, he grabbed his drone and controller from the back of the SUV. The drone was of his own creation, not much bigger than a humming bird, but with all the power of the best surveillance drones currently on the market. He set it on the hood of the SUV, powered it up—
And then just stood there, watching its propellers spin.
Fuck this.
He grabbed his cell phone. Sami answered after a handful of rings, and he didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “Can you hack my drone?”
A second a silence passed. “If that was a pick-up line, you need to up your game.” She sounded out of breath. So out of breath, she was almost wheezing.
“No—what? No, it wasn’t—” He felt heat crawling up the back of his neck and her heavy breathing on the other end of the line didn’t help. “Jesus. What exactly are you doing?”
“Dying,” she said and let out an exhausted sigh. “Quinn just tortured us on the obstacle course.”
Oh, yeah. He knew how that felt. He’d voluntarily run the thing many times in his quest to prove he was combat ready. “Can you hack my drone or not?”
She groaned. “Honestly, I don’t know. You created that thing. It might be above my abilities.”
He’d thought hacking it would be quicker, but she was right. Maybe not for her. Not yet. “You need to break into my office. On my desktop, there’s a program that will allow you remote access. You’re going to provide surveillance for the team.”
“I—what?” She sounded wide awake now. “Wait. What will you be doing?”
“Don’t worry about that.”